“Rape culture” fanatics don’t know what a culture is

In a recent edition of the Post, there is a very thoughtful and serious discussion of whether the phenomena of “rape culture” even exists. It will no doubt receive the usual stream of invective — accusations of trivializing rape, denying that sexual assaults occur, implying that women who drank too much deserved to be raped. Hardly real criticisms in any intellectual sense, but they will come.

These critics — that seems almost too kind a descriptor for them, but alas — don’t seem to understand that a denial of rape culture is not a denial that rape exists or an expression of indifference to the pain it causes its victims. The world is imperfect. Bad or disturbed people commit crimes, including rape; good, well-adjusted people don’t. My heart breaks for children killed by their guardians, and in a perfect world none ever would be, but even 100 children dead at the hands of their parents does not make Canada a child-killing culture, or anyone who’d say so a child-murder denier.

Indeed, the more closely one follows the increasingly hysterical volleys of rhetorical fire back and forth on this issue, the more apparent it becomes that those who speak of a rape culture don’t understand what the word “culture” actually means. To result in a “culture,” a phenomenon must be widely accepted as the norm. It is culturally normal in some countries for women to be virtual chattels, governed by patriarchal standards of honour; to be married against their will; to meet blame from their kinsmen and indifference or even hostility at law enforcement and court levels when reporting sexual assault; to be shunned as unmarriageable — or worse — for the “shame” of having been raped, and so forth. There we can legitimately speak of a “rape culture.”

Here, where women are socially and legally equal to men, official sympathy for rape victims at every institutional level has created a climate so overwhelmingly sympathetic to female victims of sexual abuse that the emerging cultural danger is injustice to falsely alleged perpetrators. We are gripped by a baseless, but pandemic, moral panic in which significant collateral damage is beginning to pile up.

Moral panic fuelled by ideology and righteous indignation quickly corrodes the critical faculties and blinds even otherwise intelligent people to objective facts. The numbers on campus rape don’t even come close to the famous “one in four” [women on campus are victims of rape or attempted rape], even taking into consideration unreported rates (i.e. multiplying reported rapes by 10, or even 100).

Where did that figure come from anyway? From bowdlerized research.

It began in1982, when Mary Koss, then a professor of psychology at Kent State University in Ohio, published an article on rape in which she expressed the orthodox — and remarkably misandric – feminist theory that “rape represents an extreme behavior but one that is on a continuum with normal male behavior within the culture.”

Koss undertook a survey whereby she arrived at the one-in-four figure. To get there, Koss mischaracterized responses. For example, 73% of those she characterized as rape victims said they had not been raped. And 43% of the alleged victims said they had continued to date their alleged rapists. Nevertheless, the one-in-four meme took hold. The survey was published in Ms Magazine in 1987 and “took the universities by storm,” producing what can rightly be termed a rape-culture industry: expensive, over-staffed rape-crisis centres, hotlines, rallies, conferences, sexual-assault procedures consultancies and inter-collegiate sexual-assault networks.

You can produce any culture you like if you dumb deviancy down. If you change “against her will” to “without her consent,” as we have, that is a huge paradigm shift from what we used to think of as rape: i.e. forced sex. And if a drunk woman can’t give her consent, another moved goalpost, she is ipso facto raped.

Last word to brilliant feminist (the kind I like) Camille Paglia: “The feminist obsession with rape as a symbol of male-female relations is irrational and delusional. From the perspective of the future, this period in America will look like a reign of mass psychosis, like that of the Salem witch trials … The fantastic fetishism of rape by mainstream … feminists has in the end trivialized rape, impugned women’s credibility, and reduced the sympathy we should feel for legitimate victims of violent sexual assault.”

About Barbara Kay

Barbara Kay is a graduate of the University of Toronto and received a Master of Arts from McGill University, and has taught literature at Concordia University and several CEGEPs. She is also a columnist for Canada's National Post.

I’m so glad to see that the contribution standard here keeps going up and up!

Now can Erin P, Barbara K and the other Honey Badgers get Ms C Paglia to come out of retirement and let rip – that really would would put the BeJesus up the critics and cohorts. Lets see how Saturday Night Live would Skit That one!

How excellent it is to see Barbara Kay here at AVFM. Together with the likes of Blatchford, Fulford, Corcoran and Coyne, she is one of Canada’s very best journalists and writers.

Astrokid

Re: MsKay’s

It is culturally normal in some countries for women to be virtual
chattels, governed by patriarchal standards of honour; to be married
against their will

I have commented similarly in Ms Kay’s article at the National Post. I am from the 3rd world, a land of arranged marriages, where even 20 years ago the average middle-class youth knew very little about life, and relied on elders to provide guidance on all important decisions of life. And I realized only in my early 30s that my parents dont know shit about how to make good life decisions either. They just didnt have access to as much information and knowledge as I do. And they wondered why their parents took shit decisions that screwed up their lives.
“Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.” ― Napoleon
And thats why our Ancients had all kinds of superstitious, divination methods to make decisions by proxy. Marriage via horoscope matching is still very commonplace in my country.
Sure.. there will be many instances of ‘forced marriages’, but it is silly to take an aspect of foreign culture and view it via this culture’s sensibilities. Its not like the West’s ‘individualistic marriages/free love’ is working out great.. all those out-of-wedlock pregnancies and consequent societal problems is not exactly attractive or exemplary, is it?

comslave

In my view, rape has come to symbolize relations between men and women, and there’s no going back until the population declines. Not because rape happens a lot, but because feminists have women convinced I happens as often as traffic accidents. They have won.
The best men can do in this new “rape culture” is to avoid it all costs.
One can hope that women wake up and realize this isn’t a rape culture. But it’s their job to wake up, not our job to wake them up. They’re adults and should be held to adult standards. The ball is in their’ court. They made this mess, they get to clean it up.

DukeLax

Im beginning to believe that US gender-feminists do not want anyone to clean up there mess…they want hetero-relationships to be a legal liability for guys.
10 years from now, when all American guys have been scared out of there “hetero-normative”, American women will be screaming on deaf ears for American law enforcement to remove the perversions and manufactured statistics Alliances that have scared all the men out of being “Straight”.

Sulla

I think we have reached that level in the UK. With domestic violence protection orders, and vague subjective sexual harassment laws, I think hetero-normative male sexuality is the new abnormal.

DukeLax

When all western males go gay in order to retain there basic civil rights, then, and only then will women start demanding that hetero-males get basic equal protection under the law. watch folks as this unfolds over the next 10 to 15 years.

DannyboyCdnMra

Spot on article Ms Kay.
Great to see your work gracing AVFM’s pages.

Upheaval

Camille Paglia is wrong. There is nothing remotely irrational or delusional about the feminist obsession with rape.

Once you disabuse yourself of the notion that powerful feminists are simply misguided or incorrect, and realise that they are actually cold, calculated, and motivated by a toxic cocktail of female supremacy and misandry, it all begins to make sense.

If you hated men and wanted them to be distrusted and ostrachised, of course you would incorrectly portray them as rapists in waiting.

Of course you would manufacture sexual assault stats and concepts of rape culture to vilify them.

Of course when criticised, you would not amend your theories or rexamine your research. I mean, it’s a no brainer.

Mary Koss’s 1 in 4 ‘study’ was no accident, it was precisely the result she desired.

So when people ask me why I don’t ‘reach out’ to feminists, I’m very confused.

Why in the world would I reach out to a group of people seeking to destroy me?

Scatmaster

There is nothing remotely irrational or delusional about the feminist obsession with rape.

IMO: feminists are “irrational” and “delusional”.

It is also the reason (like you) why I would never “reach out” to them.
I may get my penis cut off and wind up the subject of the joke on some talk show.

Lastango

Quite so. Individual, lower-level feminist followers may sometimes be misguided, or stupid, or acting out of a sheep-like own-group preference — but feminism itself, in particular its leadership cadres and political allies, is anything but irrational and delusional.

Everything feminist thought-leaders and political leaders do is self-serving, strategic, and aimed at securing totalitarian power. Nothing about their efforts is accidental. Everything they say is code for their agenda. When their terminology shifts (for instance, when they move away from talking about “patriarchy”, or start talking about “love” as bell hooks does) they are making an adjustment in order to attack from another direction. They are never more dangerous than when striking a pose of being reasonable, reaching out to men and inviting men to join them in dialog inside the genderfeminist ideological space. And as they regularly show, they are ruthless thugs.

Dagda Mór

If I could upvote this a thousand times I would – feminism in the end is about power. You can’t appeal to their better natures, their reason for existence is to reach an indescribable (as in even they don’t know what it is) utopia if they have to step over the cooling corpses of every man, boy, and woman that disagrees with them to get it.

In other words more or less standard issue Marxism, the great apocalyptic religion of the 20th century.

RSDavies

I think you are in error in thinking about Feminism as Marxist. Marxism ultimately perceived of a world wherein there was collaborative collectivism. If you are looking for a political model, then Nazism in my opinion is closer.
Nazism was founded on a paradigm in which Germans were engaged in an eternal conflict with the monstrous “International Jewry”. The characterisics of superhuman omnipotence and perversion that Nazism ascribed to Jews is not dissimilar to that which Feminists ascribe to the “Patriarchy” and thus men. If you look at Nazi propaganda the predatory nature of “Jews” is very similar to the claims that Feminists make about men.
The Nazi propaganda against Jews continued, and continues, even after 1 in every 3 Jews had been killed by 1946.
No matter how safe women are, how much women are able to access everything yet demand to exclude males certain spaces; the claim of oppression continues.
To sustain their political goals Feminists conjure up more and more allegations of victimisation to create fear. No matter how much women may be factually shown to be just as awful as men, or even worse, the myths go on & on. Just as the Nazi claims went on & on even though German forces and their allies were asset stripping, excluding and eventually murdering millions of Jews. As Jews disappeared from German life there was no abatement of the propaganda; and Feminism is much the same.
The fundamental difference between Nazism and feminism is that for the time being Feminists don’t have the industrial power to carry out genocide against men.

Dagda Mór

Modern feminism is directly derived from Marxism, historically, literally and ideologically. There’s no dispute even from feminists about this, the fist in the female symbol is a mixture of the feminine and Marxist symbols.

I think the piece of the puzzle you’re missing here is that Nazism is also derived from Marxism, so the similarities between the two ideologies which you note is not accidental.

DukeLax

Many do not realize that Nazi’sm and communism were very similar totalitarian paradigms.

Sulla

I dispute that. Modern western feminism is pseudo Marxist at the very best.

Nazism shared many traits with Leninism/Stalinism but they had big differences too. All states take on the same traits when they get more centralized, You realise the left wing of the Nazi’s party was killed off in the night of long knives right?

Dagda Mór

Modern feminism is straight down the line Marxist – you should read up on Antonio Gramsci and the Frankfurt school, you’ll find the language and theories contained therein chillingly familiar. And it’s not like this is a big secret, even feminists know it.

As Heidi Hartmann put it: “The marriage of Marxism and feminism has been like the marriage of husband and wife depicted in English common law: Marxism and feminism are one, and that one is Marxism”

There is no “left” or “right” in politics, there’s the family of Marxist derived groups and ideologies, and the rest of the universe.

Sulla

Gramsci was a post Marxist.

Frankfurt school was obscure and had no influence on world history. You are repeating conspiracy theory. (Feminism is based on conspriacy theory, I have zero time for conspiracy theory.)

“There is no “left” or “right” in politics, there’s the family of Marxist derived groups and ideologies, and the rest of the universe.”

Sounds like an extreme position to take. Sounds like an obsession to me.

Modern feminism is a mish-mash of things. It has heavy elements of consumerism, political correctness, bizzare mixture of left/right wing bigotry.

Marxism is flawed for many different reasons. One of the reasons is a gender analysis that is completely and utterly wrong. (Women are more like the bourgeois than a oppressed class.)

Calling it Marxist in inaccurate and too simplistic. It is done out of a desire to absolve this society from it’s own problems a use a Marxist bogey man to scapegoat them. Also a lot of right wingers are more interested in slandering the left and calling it Marxist. The problems of this society are consumerist in nature, not Marxist. (You could argue Marxism is a version of a consumer fantasy.)

You quoted someone? How nice!

I want evidence of this Cultural Marxism, no references to Gramsci an overrated post Marxist writter who died in prison.

Dagda Mór

Sounds like you’re rather heavily invested in some dodgy ideologies yourself to be honest. I don’t really care, do the research yourself or don’t, I’m simply relaying the facts.

That “someone” I quoted by the way:

Heidi Hartmann (born 1945) is a feminist economist and the founder of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), a scientific research organization formed to meet the need for women-centered, public policy research. She is also the organization’s president and a Research Professor at the The George Washington University in Washington, DC. Her areas of expertise include women and the economy, workforce participation, employment, pay equity, and Social Security. She has testified many times before the U.S. Congress, and her research is cited in various media outlets.

Dr. Hartmann is a member of the National Academy of Social Insurance and serves on the Board of the American Academy of Political and Social Insurance. She is an advisor to Campaign for America’s Future and also is co-chair of the Older Women’s Economic Security Task Force of the National Council of Women’s Organizations. She lectures widely on women, economics, and public policy and has published many articles in journals. She is a graduate of Swarthmore College and earned a Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University. She also holds honorary degrees from Swarthmore College and Claremont Graduate University. In 1994, she received the MacArthur Fellowship Award, commonly known as the ‘genius’ award, for her work in the field of women and economics.

DukeLax

“Rape hysteria” was also used by the Klu-Klu-Klan as a pretext to lynch black guys in the American deep south….on false rape accusations.

http://www.avoiceformen.com/ Dean Esmay

I have begun to refer to the feminists you refer to as “Red Pill Feminists.” That is, they know perfectly well that what they’re selling is intellectually indefensible. They know the routine. They know it’s chivalry and male disposability they thrive on. They are perfectly content with the lies and to let the useful idiots spread the lies for them.

It only takes a tiny fraction of them, at the top of the food chain. The vast majority of the feminist coalition genuinely believes what they say, fervently and religiously. But the apexuals? No. They know they score. They just profit from it in terms of money and political power, and they like it just fine this way.

https://twitter.com/TicklishQuill Isaac T. Quill

Power Corrupts – and Red Pill Feminism Corrupts Absolutely – with life style accessories by Christian Louboutin (The Favoured Choice of the Apexual Feminist).

Aimee McGee

How do we address the misinformation of rape culture? We ask questions. We challenge the assumptions.
Women aligned with the MHRM are better placed to do this some of the time…because it’s harder to stick on us the label of rape apologist.

Andybob

It won’t stop them from trying it anyway. Ask Karen Straughan, who was accused of being a rape apologist by Naomi Wolf at a recent libertarian do. Honey Badgers have to deflect the double accusation that they are rape apologists as well as traitors to the cause who have succumbed to the Stockholm Syndrome and internalized their oppression.

Do feminists really believe this? Some of the drones probably do. But then, these are the same people who probably believe that the sammich mines actually exist – and are located somewhere just off Paul Elam’s basement. There is no end to the stupidity that low-ranking zealots will embrace – they love Big Sister. However, the vested-interests chomping on cigars in feminism’s engine room know they’ve manufactured the bullshit they peddle.

Feminist accusations of men being misogynists and rapists have become so tediously predictable that even disinterested observers are starting find them dishonest and absurd. Feminists are not doing themselves any favours by promoting the concept of rape culture because it pushes credulity to its limit.

Thanks to Barbara Kay for helping us push it even further.

SciVo

“Honey Badgers have to deflect the double accusation that they are rape
apologists as well as traitors to the cause who have succumbed to the
Stockholm Syndrome and internalized their oppression.”

Also self-hating tokens with a false consciousness. And, I’m sure that doesn’t even begin to exhaust feminists’ tools for denying women their personal agency. When it comes to misogyny, they’re the pros.

https://twitter.com/TicklishQuill Isaac T. Quill

Now you know know what an Ass Looks like in Wolf’s clothing. I’m still laughing at the Clowning and “Tom Foolery” of Naomi Wolf. Her prattling on about how important it is to have valid sources and references. She was just opening her Gob and spouting to hold centre stage (Rather Narcissistic), and cover the history of her well exposed ass on that very subject of being negligent, publishing and being damned.

Naomi Wolf has along standing issue of making false claims and not getting here references and sources right – and being so wrong she needs the school marm to correct her homework. Poor Naomi is one of the best examples of a Woozle Maker and The Woozle Effect covered by AvFM. You only have to look at Ms Wolf’s idiotic claims that 150,000 women a year die from Anorexia (The Beauty Myth 1991) Read It here – http://goo.gl/gn2je0

Wolf got publicly spanked over her bad Homework when Dr Christina Hoff Sommers had to give her an “F-” in “Who Stole Feminism”. Read that here – http://goo.gl/oba9HN

Ms Steinem also repeated the same daft claim in her supposed opus “Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem (1993 Edition)” – http://goo.gl/1Y7H3I – that just verifies the link above in Steinem’s own words. Steinum even RE-Published” the error in 2012 showing a unbelievable level of arrogance and self absorption. Read That 2012 woozle here – http://goo.gl/VHzkbe

My Favourite take on it comes from Think Tank With Ben Wattenberg with Dr Sommers and Camellia Paglia:

“”..if 150,000 of these girls where dying, you would need.. to have ambulances on hand at places where they gather like Wellesley College graduation and like you do at major sporting events. .. it’s funny, but no one caught the error.”” (Hoff Sommers)

“No one caught it. The media was totally servile! Every word that came out of Gloria Steinem’s mouth or Patricia Ireland’s mouth is treated as gospel truth.” (Paglia)

… and then in 2014 in response to Karen S we have Naimi Wolf 2014 saying:

“Can I Just Say Something about accuracy and sourcing, and I’m saying this from the heart, and with respect to you – It’s so important for citizens to act as journalists in a time when the police state is cracking down on us – and what I mean by that is we are so bombarded by propaganda and spin it is so crucial for every single on of you to not leave it to the gate keepers, not leave it to the journalist and editors but to take yourselves as journalist and editors so seriously and and value truth and accuracy, and check data, check you facts, don’t take anything by anyone’s assertion, don’t take it on faith, check it yourself and really respect evidence and facts otherwise we live in China we live in a police state where everybody is at the mercy of government forces .” Source – http://goo.gl/3WeXzY

WOW – in such a dense set of language, we get the bogey man of the police state, government forces, spin, bombardment by propaganda, partisan editors and journalists and the bogey man of Communism and the Yellow Peril of China.

That Public Spanking by Dr Sommers still needs so much to cover up Ms Wolf’s Smarting Ass.

I wonder what all Wolf has had “done” and whether she’s likely to succumb to hysteria or too much red in her dress or whatever any time soon.

https://twitter.com/TicklishQuill Isaac T. Quill

Really, I think the red dress is a red herring, Focusing on it is to fall for the myth of style over content. The red dress is not the issue, just what’s in it, be that Sheep, Ass or Wolf.

http://caprizchka.wordpress.com Caprizchka

You’re entitled to your viewpoint. I would rather laugh cruelly at the maniacal hypocritical flamenco dancer desperately clinging to relevance clicking her castanets frantically at the threats from all sides. When language fails to crack through cognitive dissonance, I tend to reach for metaphor. It keeps me from succumbing to the despair of being dashed by windmills.

Noami Wolf was being interview on news-night a couple of years ago. It was a piece on rape. She hijacked the interview to plug her book on vaginas.

Jeremy Paxman who is infamous for being rude to male politicians was a submissive polite bitch towards Noami.

https://twitter.com/TicklishQuill Isaac T. Quill

As a writer, Ms Wolf is always plugging something about vaginas. It’s how she makes a living. I have to say though, as a vaginaless person I’m surprised by the need for so much writing and so many instructional manuals. It makes me suspect that all the people writing are not well instructed or informed, and it ends up being the blind leading the blind for profit. When it comes to men and the penis we get very little instruction and it all seems to work out. Could this be proof of gender dimorphism and the hypothesis that men are naturally gifted in engineering and plumbing and really the ladies just have to get a man in? P^)

http://caprizchka.wordpress.com Caprizchka

<== I love humor and irony. "However, the vested-interests chomping
on cigars in feminism's engine room know they've manufactured the
bullshit they peddle." It would seem to me that humor is a perfectly good tactic to induce, outrage, embarrassment, agony, and finally identification and imitation–Stockholm Syndrome!

I think adding culture to rape was a fabulous thing to do. I accept another woman doesn’t.

Heisenberg

“These critics — that seems almost too kind a descriptor for them, but alas — don’t seem to understand that a denial of rape culture is not a denial that rape exists or an expression of indifference to the pain it causes its victims.”
And there you have it. The stupidity of the notion that right-minded MHRM supporters, or activists deny that rape happens, or in anyway attempt to minimize it’s horrible impact on victims and their loved ones, well … it hurts, it causes physical pain. Well done, Barbara!

ghebert

Yet another great article and happy to see you here on AVfM Barbary. I would argue that rape culture does in fact exist. We do normalize and trivialize rape. It is accepted and unpunished sometimes. Unlike what feminists would have you believe, it is men and boys are victims of this rape culture. Prison rape and the epidemic of teachers raping young boys is enough to prove that but the icing on the cake is the comments section on most blogs or news sites where these types of articles are featured. The criminal “gets what’s coming to him” and the young boy is always “lucky, wish that was me”.

I must say the title is tongue in cheek as my partner was twice my age when I was 15 and I wasn’t being raped. That would have been a cool trick as I was playing rugby in our seniors team. So regarding gender equality the question arises, why would it have been different if I was a confident 15 year old girl? In my exact circumstances, it wouldn’t be. Surely rape involves one person of any gender forcing their unwanted sexuality on another. So the above title is tongue in cheek in so far as it is only a reflection of what feminists would call rape because vagina. 😉

Shrek6

Welcome Barbara Kay.

Yep, rape culture. It is a psychological condition that exists in dank dark recesses of a psychotic feminist brain. Most if not all feminists suffer this condition, thus bringing them to believing all sorts of calumny wrought upon the female population that does not exist in the real world. Feminists have proven that women in general are weak of mind. How else could they indoctrinate so many with so much utter dribble, is beyond logic and reasoning, yet they have achieved this goal.

Sad to say though, they have also indoctrinated many males too. So much for my weak minded female theory hey!

B. Kay says: “It is culturally normal in some countries for women to be virtual
chattels, governed by patriarchal standards of honour; to be married
against their will; to meet blame from their kinsmen and indifference or
even hostility at law enforcement and court levels when reporting
sexual assault; to be shunned as unmarriageable — or worse — for the
“shame” of having been raped, and so forth. There we can legitimately
speak of a “rape culture.”

I hope she has factual proof to back up this statement. I would be inclined to disagree with her on general grounds, but I have no factual proof to argue the toss with her either. All I can say is, what about all the men in those countries who number in the vast majority and who are not the so-called ‘alpha males’ and don’t have money or position in the community, and who don’t make up the laws and enforce them?
I’ll bet my now unneeded and useless testicles that the vast majority of men are abused just as much as the women are. There are the select few ideologues, be they religious or govt, who dictate the terms and the punitive measures meted out for those who transgress these draconian rules/laws, are what we deem in the West as outrageous and unnecessary. I don’t think women suffer any more than men.
But I agree, the punishments are way over the top and unnecessary. They have no right to stone to death anyone or kill anyone for any crime.
Stoning a woman because she was raped and not stoning the man, is an atrocious crime against humanity.
Okay that’s bad.

But what are they also doing to men that never, ever makes the media reports coming out of those countries?
Yeah, I thought so. We don’t want to hear about them, because they are scum and aren’t news worthy!

And I am over hearing people use fictitious language like ‘rape culture’ that means absolutely zip in reality. All it does is give the psychotic femtards something to bitch about and yet another label to lick and stick on men.

Andybob

I’m pretty sure that the men those unfortunate women committed adultery with are also stoned to death in the male-only stoning enclosure nearby. The MSM doesn’t want you to know about them, and assumes that their readership doesn’t care anyway.

Astrokid

In the Atheist community, they sometimes pass around stoning videos of the wimminz only. It was a rare occasion when a vid containing a man’s stoning was passed around. Stoning of woman and man for adultery. Our Iranian friend Ali M had commented that when women are stoned, their lower part is not exposed (for whatever reasons), and this vid does back him up on that.

SciVo

Funny thing, on my way home from work today, I was just thinking about how “rape culture” is an invalid concept when it comes to women being raped, but actually true of men being raped — especially in prison, where the inmates are disproportionately poor, black, and male. In liberal terms, the co-option (or dare I say “colonization”) of that concept by upper-middle-class white women was arguably an act of social aggression with overtones of sexism, racism, and classism. But you’d never hear it described it that way.

tuschpenna

I am not sure if it is true, but I heard that prison rape against males was actually where the term came from..

https://twitter.com/TicklishQuill Isaac T. Quill

“Rape culture is a concept of unknown origin and of uncertain definition; yet it has made its way into everyday vocabulary and is assumed to be commonly understood. The award-winning documentary film Rape Culture made by Margaret Lazarus in 1975 takes credit for first defining the concept.”

Mary Daly @1:45: “I see the rape of women and the rape of land and water and the rape of blacks, the rape of the poor, the aged, of children as well, profoundly connected. The basic paradigm is obviously the intrusion upon ’emn [them? women? what?], which can happen in what is really admitted to be rape, or in the more subtle (but sometimes equally devastating) mind rapes that happen all the time.”

What a despicable person. To name something is to implicitly exclude what is not named — such as multiple races, not to mention the male half of humanity — and she is clearly articulate enough to know that principle. Also, while she (apparently) thinks that she is giving more gravity to other issues, she is actually diluting the impact of the one that really matters: forcing sex on someone against their will. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

https://twitter.com/TicklishQuill Isaac T. Quill

@SciVo you may find this of interest in helping to see the historical narrative – Davis, A. J. (1968). Sexual Assaults in the Philadelphia Prison System and Sheriffs Vans. http://link.springer.com/10.1007/BF03180854

SciVo

Thanks! I like original sources, but my initial enthusiasm cooled when I saw a $40 price tag for one article. Is it possibly available in another form somewhere?

https://twitter.com/TicklishQuill Isaac T. Quill

You never know what is out there until you google – and for academic papers I always recommend Google Scholar. http://scholar.google.com/

I just got around to following your links, and I have to say wow. I’d never even heard of WebCite before, let alone realized what a powerful tool it is. I’m gonna go read the rest of it now; but I can tell you already that if I don’t say any more on the subject, it’s because it’s too heavy.

https://twitter.com/TicklishQuill Isaac T. Quill

The Penny Drops!

http://www.mhro.ca Jim Byset

Absolutely delighted to see Barbara Kay contribute here at A Voice For Men. Great news.

Sage Quinn

Amen to that, sister.

Sage Quinn

Reading that stuff, we shouldn’t be talking about a “rape culture”, but a “fuck culture”. But one things for sure, if a guy passes out at a party with his pants around his ankles, the only thing he’d get is his pubes shaved.

http://www.avoiceformen.com/ David King

@yhjtgyhj:disqus, your post was pretty damned close to an actual defence of rape. Not cool, and not welcome here.

Assuming those writers were even actually genuine, and in that last case, those men knew they did not have consent — yet they proceeded anyway. It does not matter that the girl allegedly had consented, from their perspective, those men knowingly raped that girl.

Seele

“Rape culture”, something whose existence is so obviously impossible. But: there is no need to believe its existence, a woman just needs to say it exists, then she can claim victim status, thus demanding wealth and power with no responsibility and accountability. The gain from doing just that is probably more tempting than some people’s scruples.

That’s why feminists are obsessed with “rape”, and to entrench the victim status they enjoy they keep expanding its definition; it’s not irrational nor delusional, they know exactly what they’re doing.

Dagda Mór

Considering Nietzsche was four years old when the Communist Manifesto was published, I think you might have to revise your hierarchy of influences. The nazis did incorporate some of Nietzsches ideas into their ideology, but their methods and core ideas were solidly Marxist.

T.K.

I feel like I should apologies to my father. He had sex with me during a visit with him, I’d been napping and woke up about half way through, and I actually called the police on him and said he’d raped me. Granted he didn’t get in trouble since the policeman said that there wasn’t anything he could do, but it must have upset him.

http://www.avoiceformen.com/ David King

Sigh… what a straw-man. Sounds like you were raped, to me. Contrary to what you may have been told — however often or frequently or sincerely — nobody here makes apologetics for rape, and nobody here excuses or condones what you allege happened to you. And, if you read the comments section of this article carefully, you’ll see that we do not tolerate people who do.

T.K.

I wasn’t physically harmed, I had no bruises nor tearing and didn’t fight. I pretended to still be asleep cause I didn’t know what else to do. Based on research this indicates that while I did not consent I was not raped, which is what the police told me in the first place. What is a straw-man? Is it an internet thing?

http://www.avoiceformen.com/ David King

Really? What research is this? If things happened as you alleged, how could it be anything other than rape?

To the best of my knowledge, sexual intercourse without consent is the very definition of the profoundly serious crime of rape. Moreover, if your assailant were your father, that is incest — also a serious crime. Further still, if you were under the age of consent, then it is statutory rape — a crime of strict liability, which means that a prosecutor need not prove mens rea (state of mind), only that sex did indeed happen.

A ‘straw-man’ is a formal logical fallacy in which the opponent (or his argument) is misrepresented (a man of straw is constructed), and that misrepresentation is then torn apart. It is a logical fallacy because the rebuttal is arguing against something the opponent did not say or advocate.

I don’t know why you posted what you did phrased the way you did. The only possible explanation I can think of is that you thought that, for whatever reason, AVfM and its readership would be sympathetic towards your father.

We’re not, not if you give a fair account of what happened. Rape is a crime that frequently traumatises its victims (both male and female), therefore we oppose rape and those who defend it because we are not rape apologists (even though since some dishonest feminists like to misrepresent us in that way).

If what you alleged truly did happen, and if you are living with trauma arising from that incident, then you need to contact a rape helpline and pursue the matter, under their guidance, with the police.

T.K.

I researched rape law, which I mostly didn’t understand, recent (past 10 years) rape convictions and court rulings, which I mostly understood. This was how I came upon this article, as I am still researching it I put the information in a list, because I like lists. I found many comments by judges that said that if a person isn’t injured it’s not rape, and that if a person really was raped there would be damage. I wasn’t damaged. I think the person who said it was a Judge Johnson bit possible not.

It was incest, but I haven’t found any information on what to do if a person commits incest with you. If you are raped you are supposed to tell an adult.

I was 18 years old, still in foster care because I am a special needs person (I have autism), at the time of the incident, I don’t know what the age of consent in Nevada is, I think the age of consent in Illinois, where I lived at the time with my foster parents, is 17 since there was a girl in one of my classes that was 17 and she lived on her own without parents.

Of course I thought you would sympathize after reading this article and the comments. I falsely accused him of rape. What happened doesn’t seem to be any different then the drunk woman in the article. If she wasn’t reaped how could I be? This only reinforced my research. Though I don’t understand what goal posts have to do with rape unless she was raped near a goal post?

Daniel Qian

Jesus fuck. That is the worst impersonation of an autistic that I have ever seen. GTFO

http://www.avoiceformen.com/ David King

I would like to see references to support your claim that sitting judges say that injury is a necessary condition to the classification of rape (you said that you keep lists of your research?) Though police and judges have, in the past, had some pretty regressive views on this subject, I can’t imagine that there would be many today that would agree — and rightly so.

Even in case-law systems, what matters is the black letter of the law, and the law says that sex without consent is rape. I don’t think anything else matters.

What you do if somebody commits rape or incest is go to the police. It is their job to investigate your case and to take whatever steps are necessary to deal with it. You are allowed to get advice before, during or after you speak with the police, and you are (so far as I know) allowed to bring a supportive person with you when you talk to the police.

Regarding your father, we certainly would be sympathetic towards him if you really did falsely accuse him of rape but, by your own account, it does not sound like you did. We are in no position to judge the merits of this case either way, which is why you need to talk to an organisation like RAINN if you are confused about what happened to you.

The question of whether or to what extent alcohol impairs ability to consent is a thorny one. It is clear that at one extreme, a person unconscious (by alcohol, drugs or any other reason) cannot consent, but there is a great deal of disagreement over where the dividing line exists between capacity and incapacity. That said, the question of alcohol does not apply to the situation as you described it.

NameNotImportant

There is a rape culture, but it’s not the one that is peddled by feminists. The rape culture can be summed up with the picture. Men and boys are not allowed to be victims, so they are silenced due to being told to “Man Up” and take the abuse they’ve suffered. This is a culture wide phenomena, so yes, there is a rape culture, but it is the culture surrounding the rape (and abuse) of men and boys.

humann

I’m an American by birth but both my parents grew up in Germany in the 30s and 40s. my mother’s father was a small-town pastor with a short-wave radio in his attic and a tendency to sermonize about the importance of Jesus over any political party, earning his church services some visits from the Gestapo. he also cut pages out of the church’s records book when people were accused of having Jewish forbears. in their small town that was the only place such a thing could be proven or disproven.

when the red army arrived in Silesia my mother’s mother and oldest sister were kidnapped and raped by soldiers who eventually transported them both to a building in Czechoslovakia where they were held with many other captive German women and raped daily for over 4 months. my aunt died shortly after that from the abuse she received and I never got to meet her.

when college-educated women start to tell me about rape culture I sometimes mention this part of my family background. I start off by agreeing with them that there is such a thing as a rape culture, then I let them know that that the culture we share here in America falls so far short of the definition that they’re being offensive to me by even suggesting that we live in one.

Bram

That statement “rape represents an extreme behavior but one that is on a continuum with normal male behavior within the culture” is not just misandric. It is out-and-out fascist.

T.K.

It never made it to a judge, why would it have. The Police officer said there was nothing they could do. This happened over a Christmas visit to my father in Nevada in 2003, after I got back to my Foster family in Illinois about two weeks later I asked my Foster mother about it.
The judge I mentioned was a new article I read about a judge who threw out a rape conviction in I think 2010. I think his name was Judge Johnson but I am not sure that is the right name.

donzaloog

Great article. More and more people are waking up to the truth. I look forward to seeing feminism choke on its own lie and hatred.

http://www.avoiceformen.com/ David King

@susie_parker:disqus, @SciVo:disqus; I don’t know whether TK’s account is true or not. TK might be an autistic victim of rape and incest (but note that TK is not apparently wanting to make a complaint out of it now), or TK might be trolling.

Either way, there are better venues for TK to get help if TK wants it. The delay in reporting the alleged event is not usual (for whatever reason), and while we encourage rape victims to get medical attention as soon as possible, there’s not much point in criticising TK now for not doing so.

If TK is trolling, the most we can do is make it clear that we condemn rape and those that perpetrate it, and that everybody’s interests are best served by real victims of rape taking the matter to the police as promptly as possible.

Susie Parker

I fully understand the “didn’t report it right away” thing. I don’t understand WHY anyone would do so, but I understand full well it happens.
What I don’t agree with is the “understanding” that the justice system is “wrong” unless it perverts itself to accommodate them.
I also understand TK isn’t playing with a full deck – but I have a habit of being a jerk enough to “lack empathy” by pointing out to any sane person the system in place is actually correct and fair to BOTH parties involved as long as BOTH abide by protocols.
When you are held up at gunpoint, it’s traumatic, but you report it immediately. You don’t report it weeks, months, years later, then whine because you weren’t accommodated.
When someone sideswipes your car, you don’t go home, clean away all the evidence it ever happened, then wait days, weeks, months or years to complain “somebody” hasn’t done “something” to make it right and the system is screwed up and lets criminals get away with it.
Either report it, or continue the path you chose and keep your mouth shut about it.
I too condemn rape, and I condemn those who willingly allow another innocent person to suffer by keeping silent about it.

http://www.avoiceformen.com/ David King

Well, I half agree.

I don’t see why justice should be contingent on immediate reporting, but nor do I see why the standards of justice should bend to accommodate those who can’t or won’t come forward when the evidence is ‘fresh’.

Somewhere, somehow, feminist discourse seems to maintain some assumption that justice ought to be delivered in 100% of cases, at least where it concerns women. It’s a subtle version of the child stamping her foot on the floor because life’s “not fair”, and demanding the adults make it “fair”.

I wish it weren’t so, but life isn’t fair and there is no way to get justice for every victim of rape if equality means anything real.

Once again, though, I don’t see where TK is asking for justice for her case. Hell, she seems to think she owes her father an apology when (on the face of it) it’s he who violated her! It’s actually me who is saying that she should go back to the police, or at the very least get counselling for what allegedly happened to her.

John Smythe

Barbary Kay is vehemently and disgustingly pro-mutilation. Regardless of her stances on other issues, she is actively working against men’s right to bodily integrity and has no place in any men’s rights group.

If there is ANY tolerance for pro-circs in the MRM, then there IS no MRM. GET RID OF THIS TRASH.

We don’t have a litmus test on any issue, including the religious beliefs of contributors. I happen to disagree with Barbara about this topic very strongly. That is my personal opinion, and it is reflected in AVFMs mission statement. Again, though, that does not mean we do ideological screening on the level you are talking about.

Not quite: I blocked the disposable email address domain (and ditto the one you used for this account), as was the policy before we switched to Disqus. Why? Troll control. As it happens, I didn’t delete the post you’re complaining about — another mod did — although I certainly would have had it not already been deleted.

Get yourself a Disqus account with a regular email address and you’ll be good to comment here (unless, that is, you violate our comments policy, linked under the About menu up top).

ETA: You can continue to use either of these accounts if you change the email address associated with it in the Disqus profile editor. It’s the domain that’s banned, not you specifically.

I’ll deal with the rest of this comment elsewhere.

http://www.avoiceformen.com/ David King

Are you really the MOD?

Not idealogically pure enough for you? Too bad. I’m one of the mods. Go look at the masthead if you want to know who I am. While you’re there, read the comment policy.

My post was to expose the vile nature of WOMEN.

That’s bigotry. Some women are are vile, so are some men. (I suspect I’m talking to one right now, in fact.)

I’m an MHRA, and I’m calling you on your bullshit because calling all women ‘vile’ does not advance the cause of men and boys. If you want to live in an isolationist little world, be my guest, but the reality is that most of us have to live and work with women, and “Ur Doing It Wrong”.

Feminists have the audacity to give men, and the society, hell, and exact countless privileges in the name of rape, and the moment we try to expose the
reality, we’re shut down?

As explained elsewhere, you’re still welcome to comment here, but not with a burner account. As for your first post, that got deleted because you were so wide of the mark of what passes for even vaguely reasonable commentary.

Those were genuine WOMEN,

Oh, you verified their gender, have you? If your objective was to demonstrate that rape culture is a fiction, citing something called “rape board” was probably scoring a win for the other team.

confessing openly of deliberately putting themselves in situations where rape could occur.

So what? Own your own shit. However stupidly a girl behaves, rape is never justified. I can’t believe I need to even explain this to you.

You say you think I’m a feminist, but actually, I’m just wondering whether you aren’t yourself. Posting bullshit from burner accounts with disposable email addresses and anonymised IP addresses about how “women are vile” and links to rape board is exactly the sort of nonsense I would expect from a feminist who has to resort to underhanded tactics because s/he doesn’t have an argument or can’t be bothered to engage their brain.

it’s the disposable email address domain that is blocked, not you personally.

http://www.avoiceformen.com/ David King

Like I already said, I didn’t delete your first comment. I don’t know who did.

It was close to a defence of rape because amongst other things, you’re saying that girls who deliberately put themselves at risk for rape deserve to get raped. I don’t know a single respectable MHRA who would agree with that.

induce the guilt on the men’s part

That’s because, at least in their own minds, they are guilty of rape. They had sex with a woman apparently passed out from drugs and alcohol, knowing full well they didn’t have consent.

Nothing else matters.

And about the email part, I have been using those addresses for more than 2 years on hundreds of websites.

We operate this policy because we’re an obvious target for feminist trolls. Of course, anybody can create a gmail account, but we needn’t make it too easy for them.

Here’s the deal:

• no more posting that rape board link. I’ll leave the more obscure version of it you posted elsewhere for people curious enough, but that’s it. Preferably, find a better source than something called “rape board”.
• stick to a single disqus account linked to a real email address
• stick to the comment policy and drop the bigotry (“all women are vile” and variations)

and your posts won’t be interfered with.

Bell

One would think that you’d have the integrity no not keep blocking me, especially now that I have informed you about using the genuine email. I am now using non-disposable email. Now, you do not have any excuse to block me.

It really breaks my heart to see that men like you have the authority on what is arguably the largest Men’s rights website. With men like you in control, I can pretty much guarantee that feminism is not going anywhere. If a day should come that it is nearing its end, men like you will revive it and bring it back from the dead.

You are so dead-set on the ‘victim mentality’ that you have entered a tunnel vision, wherein, women are and can NEVER be guilty of ANYTHING, whatsoever.

Should a woman shoot a man dead, your kind will be there shouting, it was the man’s fault for coming in front of the gun, when the woman was about to shoot! It is not the woman’s fault…ever!

“That’s bigotry”

There it is. Proof that you’re a pro-feminism white knight. I intentionally skipped “some” and posted women are, because I wanted to see your reaction. You proved my case yourself! No, it is not bigotry. When there are women, who deliberately provoke, incite, facilitate and instigate rape, and then play innocent victims, it warrants remarks such as these. Of course not all of them are this way, but that is secondary issue. The primary issue is that there ARE such women. Who can claim for certain the precise percentage? Can you? No. Can I? No. So you do not have the authority to claim the moral high ground by calling me a “bigot”.

Notice that, I NEVER once used the word ALL. You did that all by yourself. This should give pretty much everyone the idea of your dishonesty.

“Oh, you verified their gender, have you?” Yes, I have, have you?

“So what? Own your own shit.”

EXACTLY. Typical white knight response. I did not expect anything less than this. So if there are women out there, facilitating and instigating rapes, it is STILL not their fault, in the least, and it is, still, ALL the fault of men.

Very well said.

“rape is never justified” Correct. When did I say it was? Do not misrepresent me.

My point is, that when the supposed “victim” is himself provoking and demanding it, you cannot blame the supposed “perpetrator” entirely. The blame MUST be shared. The blame IS mutual, not unilateral.

Interesting that you talk about underhandedness, as you are the one openly misrepresenting me, and specifically focusing on “women are vile” part, to validate your ENTIRE argument. These are the kind of underhanded, sly, dishonest tactics always employed by feminists, which further corroborates my predication about you.

My post was to expose the vile nature of WOMEN.
That’s bigotry. Some women are are vile, so are some men. (I suspect I’m talking to one right now, in fact.)

So David, your objection is that he didnt use the word some, and that implies that he means all are like that? This is the same generalization vs universal statements issue that the MRM has been going through year after year. Karen is on record saying that she makes the same generalizations that so many people do, and she never gets any grief for that. for e.g on a very recent hangout, she said feminism is female nature politicized. And we all know how much she hates feminism.

Now.. his generalization could well be wrong. But accusing him of bigotry is not the way to go. He’s hardly demonstrated any intolerance of different opinions.

big·ot·ry
noun
bigoted attitudes; intolerance toward those who hold different opinions from oneself.

Astrokid

There it is. Proof that you’re a pro-feminism white knight.

Easy bro.. I know he’s not like that. He’s just one of the lot more patient, diplomat-type people. In every community I have been on the internet, there is always a mix of people with different temperaments.. and friction between them.

Now that the AVFM comments are opened up, the mods have to be extra alert. You know how much time is wasted just defending ourselves from quotemining and other shit.. we never get the chance to go on the offensive. We got to make it work collectively.

Bell

I understand mate. Point taken.

http://www.avoiceformen.com/ David King

You’re right, I wasn’t. I reserve judgement as to whether that was appropriate or not, given the circumstances (recent introduction of Disqus [just as you later pointed out], apparently new and unknown commentator, context of his other posts and whence he posted them).

As for the article you mention, you’re right again — but I’ll also point out that article dates back to 2010, and AVfM has moved on a long way since then. It’s not for me to say whether that same article would be published now, but I suspect it wouldn’t (as written). What Karen chooses to say publicly is not any responsibility of mine.

I’ll also say that AVfM reserves certain editorial prerogatives not available to commentators (or our affiliates, even). If that sounds hypocritical, consider that the comments we publish on AVfM reflect on AVfM as well as their authors, yet we don’t get input into what goes into them in the way we do with ATL articles.

As for Bell’s following comment, I think he that is materially wrong about shared responsibility for rape, that he comprehensively misrepresented my remarks about allocation of guilt, and that therefore his choice of tactics undermines his protestations. But, he’s indicated a desire to drop it, so I shall. I could take it all apart, but I think I’ve done what was necessary, ie demonstrate to other readers that Bell’s remarks are not representative of AVfM’s official position on the subject of rape.

I certainly don’t think I’m going to change his mind on anything, and this thread has been derailed enough already.

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“My mom used to go on beating frenzies and actually beat some of my friends, too. I stopped playing little league sports because I got tired of looking at the bench and seeing her rolling in the dirt with some other parent.”